Walnut Creek City Council: 12/17/2024

Transcript

Warning: This transcript is automatically generated by machine and may contain errors, including misheard words, misattributed speakers, and omitted passages. Always listen to the audio or video recording before assuming the transcript correctly reflects what was said. Do not rely on the transcript alone for quotation, reporting, or any other purpose where accuracy matters.

All right. Welcome to the December 17th City of Walnut Creek, a regular meeting of the City Council.

We are conducting this meeting in the City Council chambers. The meeting is being video streamed and can be viewed live or later on the city's website.

So right now, why don't you join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Stand back up.

allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which

it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Now, we're on to the consent calendar. Roll call. Oh, roll call. Sorry, I'm getting

ahead. Almost. Almost. I was close. It's not on my list. Can we have the roll call please?

Councilmember Davini?

Here.

Councilmember Francois?

Here.

Councilmember Silva?

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Wilk?

Here.

Mayor Darling?

I'm here.

Now we go to the consent calendar.

We don't have any presentations or proclamations tonight so we're on the consent calendar.

Does any council member wish to pull a consent calendar item?

Councilmember Silva?

I'm having a talk.

going to straighten out here in a second. Yes, I would like to pull items F, I and P, please.

F, I and P, anybody else? I would like to pull items L, item L, so we can talk about that.

So now is the opportunity for public comment on any of the consent calendar

items that have not been pulled. So not you yet. So A through E. It was an L.

She's doing L. Okay. Anybody that wants to comment on A through E, G through K, M

N O, Q R S. Seeing no one, somebody has a motion. Move to approve the consent calendar with

the exceptions of F L and P. Second. We'll call. Councilmember Francois. Aye. Mayor Pro Tem

Wilk. Aye. Councilmember Davini. Aye. Councilmember Silva. Aye. Mayor Darling. Aye. Motion

carries. All right, so now we're going to go to item 2f which is the ACFIR.

Kirsten Lacass. Thank you very much mayor and item f is a the annual audit or

annual comprehensive financial report, which is a tome.

So I'm hoping our Administrative Services Director can give us the highlights.

In other words, if there was a billboard on Highway 680, what would be on it if we were

related to the audit?

Sure.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Darling, Mayor Pro Tem Wilk, and members of the Council, Kirsten Lecasse,

Administrative Services Director.

So as you all know, the ACFAR, or the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, is a set of audited financial statements that reflects all of the city's financial activities throughout the year.

And what's most important is the auditor's opinion.

And so the city did receive a clean opinion, which is what we all strive for.

So that means we have stated our financial statements fairly and in conformance with regulatory requirements.

The net position is an indication of a city's financial health, and our net position is

$331 million, which is higher than fiscal year 23, so it did increase.

So essentially what that means is the city's assets exceeded the liabilities by $331 million,

and so we are in a good position.

The city's general fund reserves are healthy, and they are funded, they either meet or exceed

the Council's recommended reserve policy.

And if you wanted to see kind of what those reserves

are made up of, page 95 in the ACFOR,

we'll give you that detail.

And then I also just wanna mention that

if you would like to kind of get an idea

of what is in the ACFOR in a consolidated fashion,

good place to look is the transmittal,

which will give you kind of an idea

of what went on throughout the city during the year

and an economic outlook.

And the management's discussion and analysis

really provides a summary of all of the financial statements and a year-over-year comparison

and some variance analysis. So you can find a lot of good information there without needing

to read through all of the 196 pages.

Of questions. You said our net position is 331 million. That's assets, less liabilities.

Correct. So our assets exceed our liability.

So that includes our capital assets. So all of the roads, the buildings, the value of

the parks correct that's correct so we're not sitting on 331 million dollars

in cash that is also correct yes and our reserve levels meet or exceed our

requirements and that's on page 95 page 95 yes do our reserve levels I look at

this so what would you say the reserve levels are and do they include our

pension trust if we include our pension trust we typically don't include the

pension trust as part of our reserves

because it is restricted for a specific purpose.

Our reserves though are about three months

of our general fund operating budget

and the recommended reserve level is two months.

So we do exceed overall.

That-

And our reserve levels,

which I'm skimming this really quickly.

Approximately 50 million, I would say.

Five zero.

Yes.

And that does not include our pension trust assets,

which are about 28 million point in time.

So thank you very much.

Thank you.

Any public comment on 2F?

With that, I'm open for a motion.

Move to adopt the annual comprehensive financial report

for 2024, 2023, 24.

And I will second it because our staff did such a good job.

So roll call.

Council member Silva.

Aye.

Mayor Darlene.

Aye.

Council member Davini.

Aye.

Council member Francois.

motion carries. Okay the next one is item 2L which I pulled more as a chance

to say great job to the staff and getting it to this point and give an

opportunity for the soccer club to come up and have their say and it's two

minutes. Hello Mayor Darlene and City Council and City staff my name is Steve

Chappell I'm the general manager of the Walnut Creek Soccer Club and you can't

imagine how excited I am to be here tonight with with what is on the agenda.

So thankful. I represent 3,000 children in our club and that means times two

usually with with parents and guardians. And this particular project at Heather

Farm and also at Tice will further expand our program offerings. It will

allow us to play through most weather events unlike a couple nights ago when

and we were stopped because of the rain for obvious reasons,

but we're just really thankful

for not only leadership of council,

but also Kevin Saffin, his staff,

for getting us to this point

and to continue the project into next year

and the years forward.

We have a strong partner in us.

We know we have a strong partner in the city as well,

and just really, really excited,

but also very thankful and grateful

for what you're able to also provide us

through your leadership.

So again, on behalf of the club,

thank you all very, very much.

And we really look forward to not only the lights,

but also the all-weather turf field.

Thank you.

Yeah, you're welcome.

Thank you very much.

Council Member Silva, did you have any questions?

I do, and I just want to thank you for being here,

having been a six-year member of that soccer club board,

and there was a long conversation about that.

A long time ago.

you know what do we do in the winter and the answer from the field operations

director which was me was stay off the fields because you were in in one day or

one hour you can ruin a field for months going forward so we're really happy and

thank you for the commitment of the club to raise 1.5 million dollars for the

project so go forward fast we will we will I have a question for staff

Actually, thank you very much. Thank you. I don't know which staff person is the right person

Okay, go ahead and ask and we'll all right

Now that we have coupled together the funds to be able to do this

What's the construction schedule?

Boy, I had a multiplicity of people to choose from

Good evening

Mayor Darlin, Pro Tem Wolk, and rest of the council members.

My name is Michael Hawthorne.

I'm an associate engineer here at the city

and the project manager for this job.

So the goal is to have the project start early spring

and finish by late November early

so that we can have the soccer club use the field this year,

I'm sorry, in 2025 when we're done.

So this means that for about six or seven months,

that ball fields one and two will be under reconstruction?

Correct.

And we're working with the soccer club

on how they can schedule for that.

I know we are, but it's always exciting

until you realize you can't play on a field

for six months while you wait.

Thank you.

Anybody else have any questions on soccer fields?

Council member Francois.

Thank you, Mayor.

And Michael, I think it's for you too.

Thank you.

Steve, thank you for being here.

thank you for the club's commitment to making this happen and being a great

shining example of a public-private partnership and for staff we did get a

public comment I know we've gone out to bid I believe now on the project can you

speak a little bit to the details of the materials that may be used what kind of

base no organic base would be used as part of the turf fields so the turf

field has is made up of several components one is the actual synthetic

turf and then we have infill materials. The infill material is called a geofill.

That's the name that Shaw uses for their product. It's an organic. We're not using

any recycled rubber tires for this project. The geofill material is made up

of coconut and other natural materials and then also sand. I appreciate that and

I think the other question had to do with the life expectancy of the turf and

sort of is it any part of it recyclable or what happens at the end of its useful

life? So the life experience of the field is approximately 10 to 14 years

with good maintenance. I did check with Shaw they actually have a program from

cradle to grave to recycle the material once it's used this life purpose so that

we're not sending it to a landfill. Excellent two for two thank you. Thank

you and I appreciate having organic geo fill because I sure vacuumed a lot of

that out of my car through the years. Anybody want to make a motion? I'll be

happy to make a motion to approve item 2L and having coached Walnut Creek

soccer for 16 seasons I am really happy to see this. I'll make a second. Roll call.

Mayor Pro Tem Wilk?

Aye.

Councilmember Silva?

Aye.

Councilmember Davini?

Aye.

Councilmember Francois?

Aye.

Mayor Darling?

Heck yeah.

Motion carries.

Okay, which brings us to 2-P, and this is a question about police radios.

Item 2-B is for the funding of the replacement of our digital radios for public safety, and

I have a couple of questions.

good evening madam mayor and rest of the council I'm lieutenant Jeff Slater

and one of my collateral duties is a manager of police technology so I'm

hoping I can answer some of your questions this evening well I hope so

as you may know I sit on the two-county board of the East Bay radio

communication system Authority one of the things when we look at the inventory

of radios that each of the public agencies has police fire East Bay parks

that everybody has more radios than the actual police departments or fire

departments and that's because they're in public works and other departments in

the organization. This funding which comes from them is primarily coming from

the federal government to the COPS grant funds the replacement of 130 radios. Do

you know how many radios in total we have in the system and what we will do

about those radios for replacement? That is an excellent question and we checked

our inventory that goes back about as far back as 15 years. We had 145 radios

total. We realized that checking our increased projected staff numbers

currently that we are projecting in the future to get like 85 sworn personnel.

Knowing that we have to take care of our reserve supplemental staff support staff

members and when an emergency happens in public works we need to be able to pass

stuff out. We realized we had more than we needed and we're being good stewards

with our money and we are only needing 130 handheld radios to take care of all

of our existing staff support staff and we'll still have a surplus left over to

help out people such as Public Works. Great. Thank you for the question the

answer. Happy to move the item after public comment if there is any. All right

thank you very much Lieutenant Slater is there anybody that wants to do public

comment or any additional questions? All right you're relieved and I think we're

ready for a motion. Move item 2p. I second item 2p. Okay roll call. Council member Silva?

Aye. Council member Davini? Aye. Council member Francois? Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Wolk? Aye. Mayor

Darling? Aye. Motion carries. All right that takes care of our consent calendar

the consent calendar that goes all the way to the letter S. So this brings us

to public communications and as some attendees may be participating in their

first Walnut Creek City Council meeting which it seems like I might be doing but

I've been here a while, I wanted to welcome everybody

and talk briefly about the public comment process.

For each, there will be an opportunity for public comment

on the individual items when we get to those.

So if you desire to speak on an item that is actually

on the agenda, please hold your comments until that time.

And now we're at the part entitled public comments,

which is for public comments for items not on the agenda.

Any comments during public communications should not relate

to an item that's on the agenda, consistent with section 9.5

of the city council handbook 30 minutes will be initially allocated for public

communications for items not on the agenda. Additional time for public

communications for items not on the agenda will be provided at the end of

the open session portion of the meeting if necessary. If you desire to provide a

public comment please complete a speaker identification card and line up behind

the lectern at the appropriate time. Wait your turn and then when you approach

the lectern please state your name and city of address for the record you will

have two minutes to address the city council. Please keep in mind that this

This is a City business meeting. The City Council has adopted rules of decorum to ensure

that meetings are conducted efficiently and effectively, and that all members of the public

have a full, fair, and equal opportunity to be heard. The City Council handbook outlines

decorum expected in the Council Chambers and can be found on our website. All remarks should

be addressed to the City Council. Please do not use threatening, profane, or abusive language

which disrupts, disturbs, or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of the meeting. Again,

And each speaker will have two minutes to make your remarks, and written comments that

were submitted in advance up to two hours before the meeting have already been posted

for the city's website and for public review, and we have got them here on council.

So at this point, we'd like to welcome forward anybody that would like to address us during

public comment.

Please step forward, state your name and address, and...

Good evening, honorable City Councils, Council and Mayor Darling.

My name is David Harder, and I've lived in Walnut Creek for 37 years.

I swam on the Walnut Creek Masters for years until a construction injury ended that happy

time in 2005.

Expert public comment from Steve Stahl, Masters swim coach with 50 years experience, states

he has competed in over 100 aquatic centers nationwide.

Each was anchored by a 50 meter pool.

They all had dressing rooms without exception.

Why has the Walnut Creek Aquatic Federation said nothing about changing rooms?

Their long struggle with the city to get a 50 meter pool sized for competition left them

with no interest in more meetings.

Silence is not agreement either here or in a court of law.

There is still time and budget to add dressing rooms as described in my public comment on

November 19th.

If the new aquatic center opens in 2027 without dressing rooms, I predict this.

Swim teams will be unable to host competitions, so Walnut Creek will be the laughing stock

of the West Coast and beyond.

Now I did take trouble to reach out to the aquatic community and ask what they did want.

As far as I know, that had not happened until then.

This is what they want and you've got a copy of it.

They say, swap out the aquatic classroom for the changing rooms.

This is the same area, it's the same money.

My question for this council is are you going to talk to talk or walk the walk.

This is what they want.

Thank you.

Questions?

During public comment we just received public comment and we can you can address it to staff

we can have staff meet you outside if you want to talk about it but we can't take action

on things that are not on the agenda.

Although Mayor as I recall we are able to ask questions of staff after the entire public

communication as well.

Good evening.

Jan Warren from the Woodlands.

I just have a few comments on the intersection at Ignacio Valley Road and Oak Grove.

My neighbor's two children get on their scooters and go up to Foothill and back every day and

I'm sure they're not the only ones using that route.

And I understand from a next-door post that that's the most impacted accident area in

our city.

I just wonder what proposals we might consider to make it safer.

Thanks.

Thank you, Jan.

Any additional public comment?

Hey, everybody.

Brandon Moran.

I'm speaking to you tonight on behalf of the Community Arts Foundation.

If you are unfamiliar, we are a local nonprofit.

We help raise money for scholarships so people of all ages can take arts classes at the Center

for Community Arts right here in Walnut Creek.

What we do is we provide the means for people to take preschool classes, pottery classes,

who otherwise would not be able to do so.

And in the last couple of years, it's been challenging in the fundraising space, as you

can imagine.

We've got a shrinking donor base.

The cost of living has gone up, so it's been challenging.

So I am here tonight with an idea I hope you'll consider.

And that is to reinvest a small portion of the measure O funds

in excess into a program which could

be used by local nonprofits, such as ours,

to help draw from and petition the city when they need help.

Because the money we raise goes directly

into the hands of parents who otherwise can't afford it

so their kids can take preschool classes with the city.

And for us, a little goes a long way.

There's $125 worth of a donation.

We'll pay for just a quarter of an entire art class

or classes for a senior.

$500 donation pays for two weeks of summer camps for kids.

and $700 pays for, let me get this right,

a quarter of an entire preschool year for one student.

And this is meaningful because these are local families,

which need help right in Long Creek.

So if this is of any interest,

I advise you just put it in your back pocket

the next time there's money.

And I'm happy to be a resource.

And if anybody watching home wants to know more

about what we do, it's comartsfoundation.org.

Thank you very much.

And I already sent my donation for the year, so.

All right, any additional public comment?

Well, thank you all.

We are gonna close public comment and we'll move on.

And actually, Mayor, if I could just quickly ask,

not sure if it would be Mike Vickers

or whoever's involved with the pool.

I feel like what the comment that we heard

from the public regarding dressrooms,

we've heard several times before,

but maybe people haven't heard the answer up, great.

haven't heard the answer specifically um so could you please just tell us what's

happening with dressing rooms? Sure for the record Kevin Safian, director

of arts and recreation. Yes we staff addressed this back in September

when the council reviewed the design of the pool this question came up.

The answer was yes there are definitively dressing rooms

in the facility both for men and women. We actually met

yesterday with the Aquatic Foundation to go over the final design before they go into

construction drawings. They were supportive of the direction for the pool, for the pool

deck, and the dressing rooms. And so, yes, there are a little bit different than what

we have today. Today, it's more of a group dressing area. The modern design of Aquatic

facilities and changing rooms is individual changing spaces, individual showers, and there

is still an area where people can change outside of those dressing rooms. And so, it is a combination

of what we have today and what a modern facility would have.

And so we're confident that the design that we have

in place will be successful, will be supported

by not just swim teams, but by members of the public.

Right, and they're adequately sized

for what we're expecting?

Yes, they are.

And the question about should we swap out the classroom

for a changing room?

That would effectively take away the facility

that the swim teams use for meetings,

preparation for swim meets,

birthday parties, training for our aquatic staff, lifeguards.

So staff does not support changing out the classroom

for a changing room.

But it doesn't seem like we even need that

because we have adequate changing rooms.

That's correct, yes, thank you.

Thank you for the clarification.

Thank you.

Mayor, if I may just add to that,

I do also want to highlight that staff have had

extensive discussions with Mr. Harder

about his comments and requests.

We've reviewed those as Director Safin noted

multiple times with our expert consultants.

We believe we're on a sound path and at this point,

we're at a stage where we agree to disagree.

Thank you guys all for clarifying that.

I think we'll move on now to closed session announcements.

Thank you Madam Mayor.

There were no reportable actions

from closed sessions this evening.

Thank you.

City Manager report.

I do not have an update this evening, Mayor.

Okay, that brings it back to us

for City Council member reports on AB 1234 activities

and other such things.

go ahead and start with council member Dafini.

All right, thank you.

Since taking office, not on any assignments right now,

so I have attended the mayor's conference,

which is an organization of mayors and council folks

in the area within Contra Costa County,

and it was a holiday party and went there

with some of you all and we had a good time

and I enjoyed meeting other members of the community

the surrounding community and in positions of leadership so that we can work together in the

future. Same thing with the East Bay League of Cities. They had a holiday party and it was nice

to meet the folks there. That includes both Alameda and Contra Costa, so a chance for us to collaborate

across those county lines as well. One of the openings that just took place is the Hope

development down on the Tice Valley Grace Presbyterian Church and they had a ribbon cutting

and we I think we were many of us were there for that one and that was a that was a very nice

event. I just wanted to speak to that event just a little bit to let the community understand

more about that project and why it's important. What they did is so Hope Solutions is a organization

that provide services to folks who are experiencing homelessness. They have recently gotten into

the space of building buildings and trying to find housing by the joint effort of both the

building process and providing the resources. So what those three units there, seven units there,

six of them were for a living. There are approximately 270 square feet each and each one will house

one person and it's going to be like someone more in the elderly group because of its location that

was those are the folks that were chosen. The project cost was two and a half million dollars

but of that 850,000 was donated in the form of labor by Pulte Development so a shout out to

Polte for their help with that project. It's interesting to look at the cost, so that brings each unit after the donated

labor was about 235,000 to build and that's from scratch, you know foundation, they're essentially big kitchens and

bathrooms, so you know typically inexpensive per square foot, but I thought that was a pretty reasonable cost.

What those projects will be, what each one of those homes will be is it will be permanent

housing with supportive services and so what what that is is when we look at the different

needs for housing for folks who are homeless there's emergency shelter which is less than

six months doesn't provide much in the way of resources is considered very temporary

then you can have transitional which is really trying to move folks from the homeless situation

into more permanent housing and that's over six months usually within a year or two

And then when we get up to a little more permanent housing,

there's a permanent housing with supportive services,

and then there's affordable housing.

Both of them were looking to find,

the folks that take these spaces are paying about 30%

of their income to their cost of housing.

And what differentiates the two of them

is that these services that are provided.

So when you have permanent housing

with supportive services,

you've got mental health counseling there,

social services, they can help with food scarcity,

all the issues that prevent people from moving

from a chronically homeless state

into a more permanent housing situation.

So when you look at that, it's actually, I think,

quite cost effective to pay for those services

because if we don't, these are folks that would otherwise

go back to being homeless again

if they didn't have the supportive services at their home.

So they would be utilizing higher rates with EMS,

emergency medical care, jails, emergency psychiatric services so I thought that

was a really great project and I'm looking forward to seeing what else they

can do with Hope Solutions and their housing. Thank you that was a great

groundbreaking. We'll turn it over to Councilmember Silva. Thank you very much

Mayor. Good evening everyone. Even though it's December it seems like everyone

takes this time of the year to compress everything they would do in a month and

to try to do it in two weeks.

And so many of us have been very busy

over the last couple of weeks.

Our Recycle Smart board met this month.

Recycle Smart is the trash recycling

and organics company or agency

that represents six number cities

and the portion of the county.

And council member Francois and I are representatives

from Walnut Creek on that board.

At our recent board meeting, I looked back and thought,

Boy, were we busy last week.

We received a preliminary presentation on the proposed rates

that we will be having for the collection of garbage

and recycling on organics starting in March,

and it looks like all five of the cities

and the unincorporated area of the county in our agency

will in fact be raising rates roughly seven to 8%

starting in March,

basically because to cover the increasing

costs of fuel and labor.

Now, if we have additional funds that are available

at the end of the year, which we did at this last year,

then those go into our respective reserves.

Walnut Creek has the largest reserve levels in our agency,

but the nice thing is we've been able to use those reserves

when we need to to smooth rate increases

so they don't come as dramatically at times,

but also we've been able to reinvest these reserve monies

into recyclable materials and products.

So we've used them to be able to purchase

shade structures, big belly trash facilities,

and also to replace roofs on community facilities

and the shade lens historic building

with recycled content, roofing materials,

and so we've had an extra source of funds

to basically put recycling funds to work

un-recycled materials. So you'll hear more about this in the coming months. We

also received a report on our 2023 diversion results that we submitted to

Cal Recycle, the California State Regulatory Agency. We have a goal that we

need to meet 50% of what we collect has to be diverted as recyclable or

organics and Walnut Creek has reached a 64% diversion rate this last year so

doing great but we're looking to be able to do better as we go into the future and I my colleague

will have more to report as well but I have a few other items to cover. The League of California

City's annual meeting of the board and leadership from across the state was just a couple of weeks

ago and we set our goals for 2025 and these are goals that 483 cities in the state of California

have agreed to and we're based on the input of people across our leadership of city leaders

across the state. So four goals one is to protect local revenues and expand economic development

tools. As we go into a change in administrative leadership and some constraints of the state's

budget we are concerned about our own local revenues and how we're going to produce additional

revenues through economic development. The second goal is to strengthen climate change

resiliency and disaster preparedness. And I will tell you that as we were discussing this goal

two weeks ago, the 7.0 earthquake in Humboldt County hit. I mean, the lights were shaking and

all of that, so it was a reminder that disasters can happen at any point. The third goal is to

strengthen and modernize critical infrastructure. That includes roads, bridges, water facilities,

and broadband infrastructure and the fourth is

to secure investments to prevent and reduce homelessness

and increase the supply of affordable housing.

Thank you to my colleagues

for the input you may have provided over the fall

on those issues and we look forward to working both

at the level of sharing best practices across our cities,

across the state and also to advocating at both the state

and the federal level on those issues.

The, before we actually had a finalizing our policies

and goals for the coming year,

we had very interesting presentation from the head

of the State Budget Policy Institute

on what the state's basically financial situation looks like.

The legislative advocates, the LAO's office has assumed

about a $2 billion budget shortfall for the state.

But that is for one year and that's probably not so bad.

Unfortunately, for the years out beyond that,

it could look in the dozens of billions of dollars.

But the other distressing news was

that to learn how the state's budget is really structured,

I'm going to get this right so I need to look at my notes.

A third of the state's budget, which is about $450 billion,

comes from the federal government.

So as the federal government looks to pull back its funding,

we're going to feel it here.

And of this $150 billion that comes from the feds,

$100 billion of that is actually in health and human services.

It's in Medicaid, which is basically supporting 14 million

people in this state, 14 out of 40 million people. So that is going to

affect our counties, which are the arm of the state to deliver health and human

services locally, and it's going to affect all of the cities as well because

we're going to see a shifting of priorities, etc. So with that, you can

understand why the top goal is to preserve our revenues and look for more

economic development tools. I've served for the last year on our local

Committee of Arts Commission and representatives from the city on selecting the artworks for the Heather Farm Park and Community Center project and

Just last week we have finalized our recommendation that we'll be going to the Arts Commission in January

We started with dozens of applicants of artists and with staffs help

It was one own to 32 and then we went out it to 10 and we interviewed 10 and then we had five finalists

who actually presented ideas and where the art would go, and rather than picking one artist,

we picked three separate pieces from three separate artists. One would be a mural that would be on

the bathhouse changing room wall, so you would see it whenever you enter the roundabout for the

community center and the

aquatics facility. One would be a

lobby central, in the central lobby of the community center, we would have a hanging

art structure that is very beautiful and actually is, pays homage to California State Flower.

And the third piece is a sculpture piece that would be somewhere in the park near the playground

and the aquatic center and the volleyball and the all of that. So those are moving forward

to the Arts Commission at the end of January, and finally I will mention that we've had

the debrief for this year's Community Service Day.

We had good results, but we are going to be looking at making some changes because the

schools are changing the way they approach their fall calendars, and that's where the

crux of a lot of our work for the projects come from our schools.

So we're going to be doing some work with reaching out to them and gathering more information,

And also with the reconstruction of Heather Farm Park in the Cuba, first the ball fields

and then the aquatic center and the community center, we're going to be a little bit of

on wheels to a bit so a little more mobile for our central location.

And that's happy holidays, everyone.

Thank you.

Councilmember Francois?

Okay.

As the former liaison to the Chamber of Commerce, I attended the Chamber Strategic Planning

session meeting on November 22nd, that's the annual meeting that the chamber board

puts on to do their strategic planning for the upcoming year. It was a great turnout,

city manager was there and we had all the board members and it was led by a facilitator.

We kind of through a process of voting, we narrowed down the strategic plan focus areas

to four areas, talent and workforce needs,

economic resiliency and capital access,

regional and government support,

and I can't read my notes on the fourth one.

Let's see, growth and expansion resources

for scaling businesses.

And not surprisingly, I was slotted into the regional

and government support focus area,

and we had a good, robust discussion

Among everyone that was there, folks that were commercial brokers to executives with

John Muir about how we can be the chamber can be advocates for streamlining the permitting

process here in Walnut Creek.

They can provide support on tax issues and business friendly policies and yes, you heard

that right, that the chamber is interested in being a partner and looking where they

can to support tax issues similar to the positive support they gave for Measure O, which was

very helpful to getting that over the finish line, having the business community in addition

to the larger community behind it.

And in general, simplifying navigating the city and regional requirements.

It's not just you might need a permit from the city, but you'll also need a permit from

a utility or maybe from a regional government agency.

And so trying to talk and work more seamlessly, not only in the city, but among the various

different governmental agencies.

So that information now is all being condensed and consolidated.

Mayor Darling, I know will be our new liaison to the Chamber Board, and we'll see this through

to completion, and it'll be rolled out in the form of a placemat and implemented at

the State of the Chamber event in April.

And as a member of Recycle Smart Board, I also attended our last meeting with Councilmember

Silva.

And in addition to her report, we agreed to make some minor revisions to the RFP for the

collection services.

If you've been tuning into my last update, you'll recall that we've awarded contracts

for post-collection services, which are the transfer, the processing, and the disposal,

the landfill part where the solid waste goes.

That part is done.

We've awarded contracts to various different agencies

starting in 2027 when our current contracts expire.

The next phase is to go through a competitive process

to award contracts, probably just one contract

for collection services.

And the way that the RFP was structured

was focused on transition to zero emission vehicles

and phasing that in over the life of the contract.

Given the changes that may happen at the federal level

with how California can enforce those zero emission vehicle requirements,

we're providing the option of the traditional zero emission vehicle route

which we had originally planned for and then the non-traditional,

non-zero emission vehicle route which would still likely involve some component

of zero emission vehicles given our state's strong focus on climate change, but also gives us the

flexibility to pivot if what we had originally planned for doesn't come to fruition. I'm also

very excited to say that Walnut Creek will be hosting a repair cafe in Civic Park on January

25th from ten to one. This had been a successful program that Recycle Smart and Republic Services

are our waste hauler had partnered on with other volunteers in the community and rolled out in the

Rossmore neighborhood and now it's coming downtown and opening to the larger community

and you can bring there'll be 20 repair coaches you know don't bring shoes or have items that

you need to be you know heavily altered it's not that type of repair or probably a television but

you can bring small household appliances jewelry and clothing uh i'm told they will also have a

bike repair uh facility there so those are the items that you can bring january 25th 10 to 1

civic park in the assembly hall so right across the street and then i also just want to shout out to

Two of our fellow board members who turned off the committee for Recycle Smart, Renata Soss,

six-year council member and former mayor Moraga and Inga Miller, former mayor of Arinda who gave

great leadership and were great partners in helping advance our common goals to reduce, reuse,

and recycle. Along with Councilmember Silva, I serve on the Housing and Community Development

committee we met last week to start preparing for the

cdbg grant funding which are funds that we get

community development block grant funds funds that

each city in the state including walnut creek

gets from the federal government and are to be used for certain purposes in

terms of helping unmet community needs on

housing homelessness senior services so as part

of that process you have to, there's a three-year funding cycle and a five-year planning cycle and

I'm not sure why they don't match up but there's also a two-year funding cycle. So

we're going through the process of updating the five-year plan which will have to be adopted

next year and in connection with that we did a community survey and a lot of the items we got

back in terms of data points were a desire to help seniors and persons experiencing homelessness,

additional housing services, infrastructure improvements

and facilities for disabled people in our community.

A lot of the survey respondents expressed a desire

for more mental health services, especially among young people.

There's interest in hunger and nutrition program

and then employee assistance programs.

And last but not least, so what happens next is we'll take those

survey results will fold our information into the larger county planning process for that.

The plan will come back to the council in February or April. I think it's one of those

days. First quarter next year. It will get adopted and we'll start the process. I know

in February we hear the applications for funding. That's right. It was, it seemed a little cart

in the horse. So the applications for the funding come in February, the plan is April.

But it all worked out.

And then finally, I and many of my colleagues attended the holiday party for the Walnut

Creek Library Foundation, which is the nonprofit organization that fundraises for the two libraries

we have in Walnut Creek that allows for additional books and programs and services that they're

not able to provide through the regular traditional county funding process.

And so it was hosted at the Ignacio Valley Library and we were treated to a tour of that

library by the head librarian and she pointed out, you know, many of the really great programs

they have going on there, including a homework club, they have laptops for rent and other

many various different volunteer activities, which is, was fun to see that and I encourage,

We often, you know, the focus can be on the downtown library and we have this other great

resource in terms of the Ignacio Valley Library and I encourage all of you to take advantage

of it.

That is my update.

Thank you.

I will turn over to Mayor Pro Tem Wilk.

Well, living in that area, it is a highly used library.

It does not get the credit for that for sure.

I've seen that for myself.

As we heard from Councilmember Davini, there was a big grand opening at the Hope Village,

but there were two other grand openings that same day

that are gonna be highly impactful for Walnut Creek.

The first was Enclave Homes,

which opened up in a 1.7 acre lot size

where there was one home on it previously.

It's off of Walnut Boulevard and there's now 13 new homes

for sale right now for new residents.

Well, I guess, or current residents

that would like to move there,

but either way, there are 13 new homes.

That was exciting to see.

And then I zipped over after all of that

to the Family Justice Center South County Office

that opened in Danville right next door

to Supervisor Candace Anderson's office.

And the Family Justice Center helps families

that have suffered domestic abuse, domestic violence,

especially people that may not have English

as a second language or have English as a second language

and speak Spanish or another language as their first language.

And they're helped to navigate through the system

and working with the county.

So it's really valuable.

This is the fifth office that's opened in the county,

and this will serve not just Danville and San Ramon,

but portions, Alamo and portions of Walnut Creek as well.

So those were, that was a big day

of really important openings.

For committee assignments, I was,

we had the finance committee with Mayor Darling,

and we brought that forward, recommended that,

and we actually just heard about it

and approved it during our consent calendar today.

And I had the opportunity to have a presentation

at the annual Cal City Clerks Conference,

which our two city clerks were at.

And this was, unfortunately, I know too much about this,

but it was titled Hate in the Council Chambers

and how we can work to minimize that.

And what are some of the tips to be able to help reduce it

and potentially even eliminated at times.

I was on with three other,

we had a council member from Pacifica,

a city manager from Ventura,

and a city attorney who handles

three or four different cities

to really get a perspective

of what their experiences were,

which unfortunately also dealt with

hate in their council chambers.

And some of the, just ideas that we were able to provide

over 300 city clerks from cities throughout California.

so I hope it was valuable for the rest of the state. I hope it was valuable

and and I was accurate unfortunately in what we've been dealing with as well.

Thank you both for everything that you've done here and helping us

get through that as well. Next I'll actually be presenting this at the

annual Cal City City Managers Conference that's coming up

in Rancho Mirage in early next year. On this Thursday morning

coming up as on the board for County Connection

will be rechristening the administration building of county connection as the Schroeder family

administration building in recognition of the decades of involvement in county transportation

public service of Bob Schroeder former Contra Costa supervisor and former Walnut Creek mayor

and his son Rob Schroeder a former Contra Costa Central Contra Costa county transit authority

board member and longtime Martinez mayor. The Schroeder family have had a home in Walnut Creek

for over 60 years and their insurance company operated on Main Street until just a few years

ago. The building is one of the oldest buildings downtown and while still owned by their Schroeder

family is the current home of Telus Coffee. So that christening of the administration building

will occur on Thursday at 10 30 a.m at the county connection offices in Concord. As the new liaison

as voted on just tonight for the DRAA. I should mention that a Christmas carol is fantastic

and it runs through December 22nd. Only a few seats are left. For those who haven't seen it this year,

this is the best production of the show that I've ever seen and I've seen it for over 10 years.

The special effects are truly magical and amazing. The Chronicle called this the best rendition of

a Christmas carol in the Bay Area and has been for years. I saw so many families bringing their

children of all ages, everyone raving about it afterwards, great family show, please go see it.

In fact, you should be getting on the website right now and getting tickets for some of the

performances that are available. And the last thing I wanted to mention is the downtown Manora

Lighting will be on Sunday, December 29th. I think it's the fourth night of Hanukkah,

in the plaza outside Macy's at Broadway Plaza, and it occurs at sundown approximately 5 p.m.

I'll be there, any other council members would like to join me, but a lot of the community show up.

If you've never seen that, they're singing, there's dancing, there's latkes, there's hot chocolate.

It's really, it's a great environment and something that's just great to see, so I will be there.

I hope I see you there, too.

Thank you very much, and I've heard that there's a really especially good cast member in the Christmas carol

that plays Mrs. Fuzzywig or Fuzzywig or whatever.

Her last name is Wilk and she may or may not live in my house.

May or not. Just a couple things I think a lot of things that I've been to have been touched on

but we did get together with the East Bay Regional Park District staff who are working and the two

board members who represent the city of Walnut Creek. They are kicking off their new long-term

planning process and so we got to talk through what we've done as far as sustainability planning,

transportation planning, all the different kinds of planning that we've done in the city and how

that can work with East Bay Regional Parks.

We'll see more from them as they go forward

with their planning effort.

I represent the city on MCE,

and we did a bunch of retreats and strategic planning

to try to get us ready for our next round

of budget process, but we got an early Christmas gift.

The Fitch organization upgraded the MCE credit rating

from triple B plus to A minus,

which is going to save us some money on our new contracts,

they cited the fact that MCE does a great job

retaining their customers and providing a service

at a very affordable rate.

As with it, it's not a monopoly,

so people can leave the MCE and go back to PG&E,

and we work very hard to keep our clients at MCE.

Everybody missed the donor celebration at Lesher?

Somebody said that.

Anyway, that was a great one.

A chance to get to talk to a lot of folks and then tomorrow morning

I am going to represent the city because we have the arts access performance

Of a christmas carol. So kids from different schools are funded through the dra a to come and enjoy the christmas carol

So that will be a lot of fun

Hope village I did want to give it there's a there's an intersection here when matt talked about permitting and other agencies

As hope village was going forward to get its permits. They went to

East Bay mud and East Bay mud said we don't care that there are only a couple hundred square feet houses every one of those needs a

Water meter and so I one of the last things that John Coleman did before he left the East Bay mud board

Was he talked East Bay mud down off the ledge and got Hope village to get away with just two park tube water meters

Instead of having to pay for 10 and a new water meter is not an inexpensive endeavor

I get to do gingerbread houses on Thursday

And I tell you this, being mayor, there's a lot of sugar involved.

Last thing we did hear from the Trinity Board that our long time Executive Director Leslie

Gleason is leaving, so we will be having a change in leadership at the Trinity Center. They have

been an essential partner to the city of Walnut Creek and are dealing with homelessness and we

wish Leslie Gleason well in her new endeavors and we'll be looking for a new one. So that is it.

for all of the wonderful things that we're doing for the city and now we come

to the consideration item which is the City Council 2324 priorities update. Take

it away. Good evening mayor, council members, members of the public and city

staff. My name is Carla Hanson. I'm the deputy city manager and the item before

you is the 2023-2024 City Council priorities update. The recommended

action before you this evening is to receive the update. Back in February

2023 this council set five priorities for the next two calendar years and

every quarter we come before you and we update you on the work that we've done

on your five priorities. So we've done that over the last two years and this

will be your final update on these five priorities as the council is going to

come together on February 11th in 2025 and set new priorities. So my

My presentation to you this evening will go through each of these priorities and update

you on what we've completed since your last update, which was in June, and then did want

to highlight that all of the accomplishments under these five priorities are attachment

four, are recorded in attachment four for this item and also linked on the city's website

for the public to peruse at their leisure as well.

So as always with this presentation, I will go through each priority and then I will pause

for questions. And although I'm the sole presenter this evening, we do have department directors

here and city staff to answer your questions. So beginning with diversity equity inclusion,

this priority is focused on continuing to build an inclusive and welcoming community.

And we've been focused in seven areas. And so I'll update you on a few, few highlights

that we've accomplished since June. City staff began working with Ready Set to help build

and create a comprehensive DEI B program.

We started that work in March.

Ready Set did a comprehensive survey of city staff,

including focus groups, to really understand

where our organization was in the process of change

and becoming more inclusive.

Those survey results were presented

to city staff in December.

And some of the highlighted results of the survey

were that employees really feel proud

work for the city. They feel that they understand how their work contributes to the city's mission

and the overall improvement of the community. And they feel that working for an organization that

upholds a strong culture of DEIB is something that they're very interested in and are proud of

for the city. In addition to that, Ready Set also recommended some next steps, which include

developing a DEIB strategy and really focusing on leadership and decision making and communicating

the Y around those things, talent management, and culture and engagement. And these findings will

also be helping develop a welcoming resolution that will be coming to the council in 2025.

The city hosted a number of events to reinforce its commitment to DEIB and the community.

Pride, June was Pride Month, and we celebrated with six different Pride events

throughout the community. And then in July, 7,000 community members attended the Fiesta Cultural,

this is a Latin American arts and culture celebration that included performances by local

artists and nationally recognized artists, and then also had an all-day street fair with local

vendors. And then of course we also had our fifth annual Trunk or Treat at Civic Park that included

Dia de los Muertos celebration alongside all of our Halloween activities. On the

employee side of things our rising tide team which is a new group of employees

that are focused on inclusion and belonging in the workplace hosted their

second annual book club and organized an exhibit to display the range of city

staff and family histories that is on display in our third floor hallway if

you haven't seen it is very moving and very very engaging. That team also

continues to implement the chosen name policy and is also working on

researching language translation services and enhancing transparency

around our employee leave options and benefits. And our Arts and Rec Department

is working with Rising Tide to continue working with working together on

sensory inclusive spaces throughout the city for both the public and city staff.

and with that I will pause for questions. Does anybody have questions on

the DEIB? Mr. Silver, councilmember Silver. Thank you very much Karla. So we have

five goals and you're going to cover all of them tonight but I think I'll ask my

first question and then you can figure out how to address it each time. Many of

these goals are very broad, they're very aspirational, they have a lot of moving

parts and a multiplicity of sub goals would you say that it's even feasible

that any of these goals can be accomplished in a single two-year time

span? I'm thinking I would say a lot of these goals a lot of the initial work

that needed to happen on these goals planning creating strategies etc have

been completed but then it's really implementing those plans so I would say

the work becomes ongoing or operational in nature after the two year period.

So in this one space, diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, would you say

that there's anything that still is part of the work in progress, not a planning

stage, but are there some things that we're still working on to try to get

done and what would those be? I would say our DEIB, the recommendations from Ready

set was to create a DEI strategy in our organization, so that is something that we will be working

on and continuing to work on. Also, I think some of the DEI efforts that we have started

in the last two to three years have become part of the walls, if you will, of City Hall,

and so those things are going to continue over the next couple of years.

and I'll probably ask you the same question about each of the other four which is you know

we've got we've accomplished a lot but what else might still be remaining in the next six weeks

all right thank you sure the staff heard that question too councilmember Francois yeah following

up on councilmember Silva's question and maybe it's part of this plan that we're going to be

developing with the consultant's help on training ongoing training I'm kind of interested in what

the schedule would be for that and what sort of topics I know we all had implicit bias training

and then it seemed like new staff members and new commissioners got that as well but building on

that as a base kind of what would some of the future training topics be and when would we likely

see them when have our HR director come and answer that question Mayor Darling Mayor Pro Tem Wilk

I'm not used to this microphone here, and council members, good evening, and to answer your question,

we do have some additional trainings in the lineup for 2025 that have been indicated as next steps

as part of the recommendations by Ready Set, and those are inclusive people management, and that

is for managers and supervisors and department heads, and interpersonal bias and allyship,

and that is for all staff. Additionally, we will continue to provide foundational

DEIB training to councilmen or to commissioners excuse me and all new staff members

Is there anything else for us as a council to participate in?

Not as indicated in our next steps. Okay at this time. Thank you

Any other questions?

actually, I'll ask a question

um, I I think this is playing off a little bit of what we heard from council member silva, but

Just because we have had this priority for two years, any of these priorities for two years,

doesn't mean that that work ends. If they're not a priority, it's like if homelessness is not a

priority, homelessness is not over, we've done our job, right? So these are things that we continue

to work on throughout. Correct. All right, thank you. All right, let's go ahead into the next one.

Let's jump right into economic development and job creation. This priority has four different

elements and I will be updating you on updates since June. Our economic

development action plan is a two-year plan with strategies to promote economic

diversification and capitalize on the city's strengths. We've had some staffing

changes in our economic development division but good news we will have a

new economic development manager starting in January 2025 and we're all

very excited to see them start working here and getting their hands right into

economic development. Since June we've completed the adoption of the Shadelands

PBID annual reports and we continue ongoing collaborations with the

Chamber of Commerce, Walnut Creek downtown and our other local associations as

well as our real estate community and our business community and continue to

strengthen partnerships with our local businesses and organizations. The focus

of our permit streamlining goal is really to improve the development

process permitting processes to create to make it easier and more understandable for our customers

We staff provided a development services update to the council in September

That included outcomes in areas of customer service and process improvement and collaboration and problem solving on our development services team

Also in September the non residential standards and guidelines were adopted by the City Council

which helps really clarify the process of design review which was part of our permit streamlining goal and

Then kicked off in October was an update to the city's sign ordinance and process

If you've been downtown in the last year, you'll know that Locust Street was under construction

Mostly by our Contra Costa Contra Costa Central Sanitary District in East Bay Mudd district that was replacing aging

utility infrastructure. We leveraged this construction to go in behind them and complete

some paving work, some streetscape work, and traffic safety improvements. And we held a ribbon

cutting in November to reopen the street. New and improved, as you can see in these photos.

And with that, I will pause. Questions? I think we're happy. Oh, same question. What's still to

to be, where are we in the streamlining, et cetera,

because I know there's a lot of great programs and plans

in the works and maybe we can summarize a few of them.

I can tackle that, there's a lot left to do.

So, you know, the Economic Development Action Plan.

Don't abandon this quite too soon.

Yeah, the Economic Development Action Plan is at best,

you know, halfway through from a timeline perspective,

there's a considerable number of actions

if you look at the attachment

that's in the part of the staff report,

And in addition, in terms of streamlining with permits,

we've made some headway,

but there's considerable work yet to be done.

And I would just wanna acknowledge

that I see some representatives

of Walnut Creek downtown here,

and I thank them for their involvement in this

and for their input and participation.